As we continued to grow our open source team through the year, we also created new channels of communication for all things open from AWS and across Amazon. Through our website opensource.amazon.com, we’re making it easier for everyone to see what AWS is doing to grow the code base, what the community is doing, and looking for opportunities to collaborate. Our open source blog and our social feeds including @AWSOpen on Twitter are abuzz with activity showcasing open source contributions from across the company. WIth over 300 GitHub repositories published in 2017, check out our code and participate on aws.github.io.

Throughout the year, we joined customers to showcase their open source projects like Spinnaker from Netflix and CloudCustodian from CapitalOne. At re:Invent, earlier this November, Adrian Cockcroft and I spoke about open source at AWS; the communities we are working with, what we are doing to improve code, growing the number of contributions we make, and where we collaborate. If you missed the presentation, you’ll find it here, along with around twenty open source sessions and workshops.

The end of the year presents an opportunity for reflection, predictions, and resolutions for the new year.

2018 is the year of open source. It marks the 20th anniversary of open source, and of founding organizations like the Open Source Initiative (OSI), and events like OSCON. There will be sharing of stories and celebration throughout the year. I recall the excitement at OSCON in 2000 in Monterey, California, when my first open source project, OpenOffice.orgwas announced. Looking back, the last 20 years in open source have been exciting. The collaboration with communities was incredibly rewarding, and more now that open source software is everywhere.

Zaheda Bhorat

Zaheda Bhorat is the head of open source strategy at AWS. She has been instrumental in growing the AWS Open Source team and contributions. A computer scientist, Zaheda was one of the co-creators of Google's Open Source Program Office and several successful programs including Summer of Code. She also brings a deep understanding in open standards from her work as head of open standards at Google, and as senior technology advisor for Government Digital Services, UK Cabinet Office. Here she drove policy for the adoption of open document formats. Zaheda has held many open source and technology leadership roles. At Sun Microsystems, she lead the project and the global community responsible for the success of OpenOffice.org and NetBeans.org. At Apple, she managed the EMEA and APAC online service teams. She serves on the board of the Mifos Initiative, where she combines her passion for technology, open source and social good. You can find her on Twitter @zahedab.